peace, and to distinguish him with singular marks of his favour and
affection: And upon his lordship's laying down the great-seal, he was
at his particular recommendation, and with the ready concurrence of
his successor, continued in the same employment under the earl of
Macclesfield.

He held this place to the time of his decease, which happened on the
17th of February 1719, the very night in which his tragedy, entitled
the Siege of Damascus, was first acted at the Theatre-Royal in
Drury-Lane.

He was cut off by a consumption, after a painful life, at the age of
42, when he had just arrived at an agreeable competence, and advancing
in fame and fortune. So just is the beautiful reflexion of Milton in
his Lycidas;

Fame is the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon, when we hops to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.--

He was privately buried in the vault under the chancel of St. Andrew's
Church in Holborn. Mr. Hughes, as a testimony of gratitude to his
noble friend, and generous patron, earl Cowper, gave his lordship a
few weeks before he died, his picture drawn by Sir Godfrey Kneller,
which he himself had received from that masterly painter. The value
lord Cowper set upon it will be best shewn, by the letter he wrote